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Talking about the deceased in the Jish linguaculture

A semantic and pragmatic analysis

ORCID logo | Tel-Hai College
This paper has aimed to look into the terms and expressions used in the Jish linguaculture when talking about the deceased. Seventeen such terms and expressions are presented, discussed, and explicated using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. The explications appear in simple, (semi-)universal language, which makes them relatively easily understood and readily translatable into any language. This, in turn, means that the explications are accessible by linguacultural insiders and outsiders. In addition, the study provides anthropologists and linguists with precise analysis owing to its micro-level focus; it investigates the micro-linguaculture of Jish, which belongs to the macro-culture of the Arab world. Lastly, the study documents one aspect of this undocumented linguaculture; this documentation can preserve one part of this linguaculture from fading into oblivion.
Keywords: Linguaculture, deceased, euphemistic terms, dysphemistic terms, jocular terms, interjectional phrases, NSM
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Talking about someone’s death in the Jish linguaculture
    • 3.1Different ways of saying “someone died”
    • 3.2Different ways of saying “someone was buried”
    • 3.3Different ways of referring to the deceased
      • 3.3.1ḥayāt ‘life’ & Il-ḥarīʾ ‘the burned’
      • 3.3.2 alla yirḥamu ‘may God have mercy on him’
      • 3.3.3 yirḥam il-trāb illi lammu ‘may [God] have mercy on the soil that engulfed him’
      • 3.3.4 alla yghammiʾlu ‘may God make it deeper for him’
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 8 March 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23034.hab
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Habib, Sandy
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